


Need and Want

by genVicron



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora Needs a Hug, Catra notices Adora's having some problems with wanting things, Drabble, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Sex, No editors we die with courage, Post-Canon, So she sets out to make it less scary, The Best Friend Squad provides
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27495397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genVicron/pseuds/genVicron
Summary: Adora could walk away if she needed to, she could solider on without any of the things that make her happy, and nothing scares her more than that fact.  Because if she can, that means someday she'll have to.
Relationships: Adora & Bow & Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 202





	Need and Want

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in like an hour but I love it.

Adora doesn’t need Catra, and that’s terrifying. Because even if Shadow Weaver’s dead, has been dead for months now, the lessons she gave them are still there. If it’s unnecessary it can be taken away. If Adora doesn’t need her, she can’t count on her staying. So she’s acutely aware that if Catra decided to leave one day she could just keep going, forever if she needed to.

She’s already done it once, she made it three years without her and even with Catra working against her she barely even stumbled until the end. She could live without Catra, but Moons she doesn’t  _ want to. _

So she throws herself into being with her, she relearns all the little expressions, touches, and ways of saying things that Catra uses to be honest when she can’t force the words out. She slips back into making Catra laugh because it’s the best sound she’s ever heard. She kisses her like she’s drowning and only Catra can save her, they spend nights where Adora nearly downs Catra in passion to hear her gasp and cry out so sweetly, to feel her cling to Adora like an anchor, hard enough that she leaves marks Adora has to pretend not to be proud of.

She  _ stays _ just like Catra asked her to, and hopes beyond hope that it’s enough for Catra to do the same. That it’s enough to keep their infinitely expanded universe from taking her away again. 

Because she loves her, she loves her so much that she’s terrified. Adora’s love has been used as a weapon against her for so long- first by Shadow Weaver, then Catra herself, and then Prime- so now that it’s swelled to such incredible size, now that she’s showing it so much, it’s only a matter of time before something drives it back into her own chest like a knife.

She’s hovering, and she knows it, which means Catra definitely knows it. For the first few weeks it’s easy to use the excuse that she still can’t quite believe it, that they finally have each other even closer than before. Then the idea of the ‘honeymoon phase’ supplied by Netossa made a good new excuse. But it’s been months, and the excuses are wearing thin.

She can see it happening, she’s waking up at the slightest sounds, jumping at unexpected movements, bracing herself whenever Catra says they need to talk about something. Every time Catra wakes up before her and goes to start her day there’s an awful moment where Adora wakes to an empty bed and has to stop herself from crying before she hears Catra’s movement again.

She’s getting looks again, from her friends, from Catra, the same kind she got when she couldn’t reach She-Ra’s power and still insisted on throwing herself into battle with the same reckless abandon, or when she carried the Failsafe’s brand. Like she’s carrying some burden too heavy for any one person again but they can’t quite figure out what it is.

She doesn’t want them to, they don’t have the lessons, they wouldn’t understand. They’d think she was clingy, suffocating- nevermind that she knows that’s what she’s edging towards, that the selfishness of it makes her sick- and ask her to take a step back. A step can become a mile so easily and she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to let go again, but she could, and it would be easy.

Then something shifts. It starts on a night when Adora grip on Catra tightens, when she lets her hunger for her into her eyes and Catra tells her no so Adora starts to tuck away the hunger, hide it again so she doesn’t scare her away, but then Catra leans in close against her and whispers.

“Let me catch you, this time.” Adora almost refuses, but the look in Catra’s eyes is so soft, so warm, and she loves her too much not to be a little selfish at times, especially if Catra offers to let her.

Catra’s touch is gentle that night, both their voices murmur instead of shout, no new marks are added to the collection, and when they sleep their grip on each other is loose, but Adora feels something in her, some part of that fear, begin to uncoil.

The change spreads through the people around her, first Bow offers to carry something for her. They both know she could manage alone, she doesn’t need the help, but he doesn’t take no for an answer, they talk largely about nothing and when they part Adora asks him why he insisted. He shrugs and says he just wanted to.

Glimmer decides to take them all to Mysticor again on one of her rare days off, and now that Catra’s shared the secret of how to get Adora to relax with Glimmer they spend nearly the entire time leaning against Adora. Catra on one side, Glimmer on the other. When Adora insists this is supposed to be Glimmer’s day off, she insists she’s getting just as much out of it as Adora is. And besides, she wants to.

Catra normally takes Melog with her when she ends up having to go somewhere for the rebuilding efforts, but she starts leaving them behind every now and again. The reason becomes clear rather quickly, as Melog follows Adora around on those days, nuzzling up against her at almost every opportunity, and she has the sneaking suspicion that they’re doing it every time Catra thinks about her.

On top of the larger gestures, all three of them start to do little things, gravitating towards the same rooms with her to work in, hugs or momentary brushes when they pass each other in the halls, offering each other problems they’re having with their work to talk through them together, quietly checking when something makes Adora jump instead of letting her just say it’s nothing. Things they don’t need to do, things they say they do just because they want to, but each is something Adora’s wanted, something she’s felt too selfish to ask for.

With each gesture that frightened part of her uncoils more and more. She stops waking up in the middle of the night, the instinct to listen for her slowly comes easier than the fear of an empty bed when Catra wakes up first.

It’s when she notices she can kiss Catra without needing to keep a handle on some desperate undercurrent she realizes what’s happened.

“You noticed,” Adora accuses her, soft with gratitude.

“Of course I did,” Catra murmurs back against her lips.

“You didn’t need to do all that,” she says, her grip on Catra tightening for a moment.

“No, I wanted to,” Catra chuckles, “we wanted to, which is better.” Adora’s grip relaxes and the swell of love in her chest doesn’t feel like a weapon, the fear swallowed up so she barely even feels it.

“Thank you,” she breathes.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi at [Makuta's Chronicle](https://makutas-chronicle.tumblr.com) or [genVicron!](https://genvicron.tumblr.com)


End file.
